GENESBYJOHN.INFO
Introduction
NOTES & RAMBLINGS
All of these genealogies are designed to stand by themselves. That means that there is an amount of duplication of names between them.
The Abrahamson genealogy is the first one up on this site. It is my first attempt at a web site and so it is, in fact, an experiment. This means that each one of the genealogies will be a bit different. As I improve at this I hope the site will improve. The server that this is on is my son's and sits in our basement right next to the dryer. He is learning as I am. I am using Dreamweaver to make the pages. It may be the best program out for this sort of thing but I have some problems with it and can not do exactly what I want to with it. This maybe because of my lack of ability with this program or lack of flexibility in it. Time will tell. The indexing takes a very long time. I have to mark every name and then make links from the index to the name and then check it to make sure its correct.
I have at present over 9,000 names in my data banks. It is not a large number of individuals but it would have been very hard for me to keep track of everything I needed to or even find the information I did have without good software .There are a number of good genealogical programs out there. The one I use is called Brother's Keeper. I have been using it since it was a DOS program. I still have my copy of version 1. I have experimented with a few other ones (PAF & LEGACY mostly) but like this one the best. Probably because I have used it for so long. Each one has its good and bad points.
The format of these genealogies is in what is called Register style and was originally used by The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. This publication is put out by the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. The oldest or earliest ancestor receives the number one. All of his children get a Roman numeral according to the order of their birth. Any of his children who have children are given another number that is to the left of the Roman numeral. This means that there is more information about this person in the next generation and it would list their spouse and children. After the first generation, the first name of that person's father, grandfather, etc. will be in parentheses. In front of the name will be the number of that person in this genealogy. A superscript number is after the name. This will indicate the generation of that person as counted from the original ancestor. This method may seem difficult to follow at first but it is really very simple and will become easier with a little practice. There are other variations on this format but they are basically the same. Links are provided to jump forward and backward.
Links are also provided in the genealogies to supplemental information such as obituaries, short biographies, notes, endnotes, transcribed death certificates, wills and the like. I felt that putting this stuff in the body of the genealogy would be to cumbersome. I had done that when I printed these up for family reunions and other gatherings. Some people had a hard time with them. I had thought about leaving all of this out, especially the endnotes, but decided against that.
The biographies have been added to help these people come alive rather than have a dull monotonous list of people, dates and places. There is not nearly enough of these personal stories and biographies but I hope to add more in the future. Janet Pinnerud Novak was kind enough to let me use a copy of her article "Thoughts From A Country Gal." She had interviewed her mother about her early life and had added some of her own memories to it. This kind of material adds greatly to this genealogy and all of our family histories. If you wish to share them with us please send them to me. In its present state some of the text is just notes taken from obituaries or parish records and censuses and is in a rough form. Other parts are personal stories and information from interviews and is in a more finished form. Some of the text is written in a more formal manner and others are more personal. Mostly this is due to the type of information available on that person. I also am constantly going over the material and making additions or corrections. Conflicting dates or events need to be research to find the correct one. In some cases the correct date may never be known. This means that the different dates and events have to be mentioned. Perhaps in time they can be sorted out. All families have feuds, black sheep, saints and sinners and they are all important.
Eventually I will add pictures to this in the form of links to photo pages.
Remember that this is a work in progress and probably always will be.
If you find a man listed with children and no mother all that means that the mothers name is not known. If a woman is listed with children and no husband..... That happens frequently.
Good luck and good ancestor hunting.
Rev. March 30, 2007